Hello, my name is Ian Firkins and I am a very ordinary angler. If there was a school report for fishing, mine would read "tries hard, could do better"! See below my attempts to catch big fish (well, any fish!) of various species from the rivers Trent, Derwent, Dove and Soar.

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03/12/2104 - Another quick zander session

I suppose this mild weather had to end sometime so, with temperatures forecast to plummet, it was back onto the river for another quick zander session after work to test my new rigs. River had dropped and cleared considerably since last visit and with the bright sunshine I thought I could well be in for a struggle. Baited up and dropped the two rigs out on the crease. Wasn't happy with my left hand rod, so picked it up to move it only to find it well and truly snagged - a downside of using trebles! At least I only lost the trace but, having only made up two of the treble rigs to experiment with, it meant I had to replace it with one of my conventional hair rigs. Sod's Law, that was the rod to start nodding about 20 minutes later! Fortunately this one really wanted the bait and set off with it before I'd picked up the rod. After a short fight, I had another fat zander of 6lb 8oz in the net.

Zed on the hair

As the light dropped the Barn Owl put in another appearance, this time flying backwards and forwards over the river and, at one stage, landing on the fence downstream of me. Unfortunately he couldn't work his magic this time as I didn't have another sniff on either rod. Sky was clear as a bell and consequently it got very cold, very quickly as it got dark. Packed up as the mist started rising off the river and a frost started to form on my damp weigh sling. Wasn't surprised when the car thermometer said it was 1 degree Centigrade. Time to start thinking about some grayling sessions!